I am not going to lie, it’s pretty freaking ingenious. Especially if Starbucks is paying on a per click base. I’m guessing that this little ad is worth it’s weight for both facebook and Starbucks. If only pest control were as cool as coffee. Unless… maybe… do you think customers would buy pest control for their friends??? Uh… Nevermind. Snap out of it. Wake up and smell the coffee!

Facebook Birthday Targeting

Apparently at one point they had birthday targeting. Then it seems they relinquished it. Perhaps now it has a 2nd life in this new ad layout. Facebook birthday ads are back. Perhaps this time to stay since they may actually be targeting the birthday present buyers rather than the birthday present receivers??

Interesting read today from Fox news on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This is something that would effect SEO companies as they are prone to adding links and building blogs to get more traffic. The FTC has voted to regulate blogging and fine those that are posting product reviews for money. They believe that these reviews are misleading in that the consumer is unaware if the review is a organic unsolicited review or if the review is paid for by the product company. Further, many of these sites and reviews sign on as affiliates and receive a commission if the product is bought through their site.

The law will require that bloggers must make it known that they are being paid in a “clear and conspicuous” manner and the law goes into force December 1st, 2009. The law does not require notification for “free” products, meaning if I were to offer you free pest control service in exchange for a review then you are not required to disclose that you are receiving free service. While these regulations may make many bloggers nervous, the FTC says that they intend to target the companies and advertisers. This actually makes me more nervous as a pest control company.

Let’s say that I am paying an SEO company to build my site and back links. How can I be sure that the SEO company I hire is adhering to this law? Who then is responsible, the SEO company or the pest control company? Further, this law seems very inadequate. How do you define a “review” of a company or a review of a product? How will the FTC distinguish between legitimate customers reviewing a product or service versus the paid reviews? And what about blogs that benefit indirectly from their reviews (i.e. Google adsense)?

Or better yet define “clear and conspicuous”. How do I know if this site “clearly and conspicuously” show that I am a Bulwark employee. Is the facebook profile on the left sufficient or do I need to disclose this in every post? Beyond that this blog isn’t purely a Bulwark blog, its my own blog and thoughts as well. Bulwark does not sanction everything written on this blog and I am not really getting paid directly for my content.

Overall, however, I applaud the FTC’s attempt to regulate this gross flood of solicited reviews. It is unfortunate that so many companies and individuals are cashing in on the naive public. Having worked on the internet for sometime I spot the propaganda reviews and comments regularly. In fact, there are entire blogs that look like just a single user reviewing everyday products, but in fact are a paid blogger.

As far as I am aware Bulwark has not overstepped these requirements. But, again, I am unaware of every attempt hired SEO firms have undergone to boost my web presence. Further, I don’t know how they define “clear and conspicuous”. Hopefully a site that is owned by Bulwark is clear. But, it does sound like I will need to check in on my SEO team, and I would advise all internet advertisers and business owners to do the same. Don’t get caught with your pants down.

From your Pest Control SEO guy.

This post was not directly paid for by Bulwark Exterminating, however the writter is biased as to which pest control service is the best.

Once you have successfully separated yourself from the crowd you will get noticed. Getting noticed by customers and potential customers is great, but getting noticed by competitors may be a bad thing. Essentially if you cut the road to a new found success, your competitors will jump on the same road.

Why then would I be so liberal to share what we know?

I believe that the leader that finds the new territory and reaps the market domination will remain the leader for a good period of time. Perhaps the oil pump will run dry, but its still valuable while it runs. But more importantly I believe that competition makes us better. It makes every one better, which ultimately is a good thing for the consumers.

How do you stay ahead once your a leader?

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” – Arie P. De Geus

Continued learning and reading. Is not a secrect. Its not a trick. Its improvement one step at a time and it consistent improvement. That’s it. Get ahead and stay ahead.

1- Stay away from town or city names. Town or city names are not trademarkable. Ask any trademark lawyer. You may have the name for 20 years and a guy comes along and sets up shop across the street, calls himself St. George Pest Control, and you can’t do a thing about it. Plus it gets a little hairy in the marketing area as well.

2- Stay away from “kill, killer, slayer” or other like terms. These names may sound great to you and you may think that they convey what your goal is, but studies show that such negative words can be deterrents.

3- Stay away from using specific pests in your name. If you named your company the Mouse Control Guy, then you could be limiting yourself to targeting just mice.

This is solely from my experience at Bulwark Exterminating and my degree in marketing. In the end, a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. Meaning, if you provide a great service then no matter what you call your company, people will still come off of your referrals.

I am constantly bombarded with phone calls and emails for advertising. Now isn’t that just a little ironic? If your a marketing company or advertiser then shouldn’t you be able to reach me through your advertising methods???

If your advertising is that effective then why are you calling me instead of advertising to me?

Just food for thought.

Our most recent call was for yet another phone book directory. Paper must be getting cheaper. What a phone book company doesn’t see is this:

GENERAL PHONE BOOK STATS-
100 calls=
5 bogus calls – Solicitors/wrong numbers.
48 Existing customers – No New money just one of our local customers looking for us and happening to find us in the phone book directory.
24 referrals calls- Looking for us, if they don’t find us in your directory then they will find us somewhere else.
23 Sales Leads- (Potential new customers, shoppers) Dex quoted me that pest control closes at 33%.

So out of 100 phone calls you might close 7.59.

Now this is just an average, and perhaps it has little real bearing on if the phone book works for you. But for me it shows you what a sales guy doesn’t. “Oh, Billy Bob’s Pest Control got 300 phone calls last month. At $3000 and closing half of those that’s only $20 a new customer!!!”

Wrong, your pest control service might get new customers but I doubt you are really bringing in even close to 50% of those calls. Run the numbers yourself. Then ask yourself should I be working to pay the phone book? That’s what happens when your phone book advertising breaks even. You do all the pest control work the phone book steals all your profits.